


He's Down

by soulfulsam



Series: Taming Each Other [2]
Category: 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Genre: F/M, Family, Humor, thoughts about past sexual relationship w/ Joey Donner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 03:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17655002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulfulsam/pseuds/soulfulsam
Summary: Mister Stratford think he's got the 411 on Kat and Patrick's relationship and decides it's time to have a serious talk with his daughter.





	He's Down

“Katerina! I’m home. Are you alone?”

Kat, who was in her room trying to pick something to read from her bookshelf, was startled by her father’s voice.

“Yeah!” she called out.

She wasn’t lying; she was alone. But, contrary to the new “no boys in the house and, dear God, never in your bedroom” rule that had been instated since she and Bianca started dating, Patrick had left her room no more than five minutes ago. She wondered if her dad had seen his beaten-up, green truck leave the neighborhood. Her father didn’t leave her in suspense for long.

“You didn’t have that Verona boy over while I was out performing an emergency cesarean section to a seventeen year old girl in breech, did you?”

Both the sound of his voice and footsteps grew continuously louder as he was no doubt approaching her room for inspection.

“I just got home,” she lied.

“Uh-huh.” The door opened and she turned to see her dad eyeing her suspiciously. “I saw that jalopy of his.” He took measured steps around the room and then, curiously, peered into her trashcan. “Did he come here to pick you up?”

“We went paddle boating.”

“Again, huh? Must be one happening place.”

“Very happening.” Kat balled her hands into fists before instead settling them onto her hips, then turned away from her bookcase and spun around to face her father. “Are you done violating my privacy now?”

Her dad eyed her for a moment and then sheepishly hung his head. “I suppose so.” He shuffled towards the door but then perked his head up as if he’d suddenly remembered he’d left the stove on. “Where’s Bianca? And don’t give me that ‘off with bikers’ stuff. I have a right to know where my own daughters are.”

Kat rolled her eyes. “She’s at the movies with Cameron.”

Her dad’s face turned panicked, but he said nothing. Instead, he nodded and then walked out, shutting the door behind him, but Kat had the distinct feeling their discussion was far from over.

Her suspicions were confirmed the next evening after dinner. As she loaded the dishwasher and Bianca wiped down the kitchen table, their father, who had disappeared for the past several minutes, called them into the living room. Whatever Kat was expecting, it wasn’t her father sitting on the ottoman opposite the couch with a mysterious black plastic bag beside him, red faced and looking as if he was about to be executed.

“Look,” he stated, “I know you’re both...” He took a deep breath. “Dating now.” He said ‘dating’ the way Kat imagined he might say, ‘shooting heroin.’ “But we still have house rules. If anything, they’re more important now than ever. You don’t walk into this house with a tattoo, a piercing, a baby, or a boy.”

Bianca rolled her eyes. “We know, Daddy.”

“And boys might ask...” he scrunched up his nose and frowned, “certain things of you. But the answer is always ‘no’! No! Do you understand me?”

Bianca sighed exasperatedly. “Yeah, we get it.”

Kat couldn’t help herself – she burst out laughing. Her father narrowed his eyes and gave her a hard look.

“Katerina? You think this is funny?” Kat wiped her mouth in an attempt to hide her smile while she tried to get her face under control. “Okay, you know what? Bianca, go upstairs. I need to have a talk with your sister.”

Bianca bounced off the couch. “Gladly,” she huffed. In a moment, she had raced up the stairs and was out of sight.

As soon as Bianca was gone, their dad covered his face with both hands and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, Kat. This is a conversation a father never wants to have with his daughter, but I don’t think there’s any way around it now.”

She squinted at him. “What?”

“Maybe I put too much pressure on you to conform without meaning to when I said Bianca could date if you did.”

“It’s not like that -”

“You’re telling me you would have gone to that Bogey Lowenstein’s party if Bianca hadn’t begged you?”

“Well...no.”

“And if you hadn’t gone, maybe now you wouldn’t be dating Kangaroo Jack.”

“His name is Patrick.”

“Kat, you’ve always been the sensible one, and so I never thought you’d start dating so early.”

“I’m eighteen.”

“And still in high school, with all those boys lying in wait to impregnate you.”

“What?” Kat’s mouth dropped open and she barked out another laugh. “What high school did you go to?”

“I can’t prove it, but I know you had that Verona kid in your room yesterday afternoon. And soon you’ll be going away to college where I won’t be able to even know what you’re doing.”

Kat rolled her eyes. “That is absolutely...”

He held up his hand. “Just let me finish. You might legally be an adult now, but you’re still my little girl, and I don’t want a misguided decision to ruin your future before it even starts.” 

He grabbed the handle of the black bag sitting on the floor beside him and handed it to her. Kat took the bag and peered into it curiously. It was filled with colorful squares, which she quickly realized were condoms of different brands and sizes. Her jaw dropped open and she looked back up at her father with a horrified stare, but he was staring down at the floor as if he dearly wished he could disappear into it.

“This isn’t an endorsement, but...” he paused. “We give them out for free at the clinic,” he explained unnecessarily. “I don’t like that you just flout the rules in this house, but unfortunately unlike your sister, you’ve also figured out there’s not much I can do to stop you. I noticed there weren’t any condoms in your trash or any of the toilets in the house -”

“Oh my God! Is that what you were doing with the wrench yesterday?”

He shook his head. “-And you can’t – I don’t care -” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat before continuing. “I don’t care if he says it doesn’t feel as good, or that he’s clean, or you don’t need it this time – you make him wear one of those every single time. You got that?”

Kat was too shocked at first to formulate a response. She looked back and forth from her father to the bag of condoms. “I – we -” she finally spluttered, feeling heat rise into her face and ears. “We’re not -”

Her dad reached out and grabbed one of her hands. “Kat, please. I still don’t want him over here, especially when I’m not home. It’s called respect, you got that?”

“Yeah,” she said stupidly, not able to think of anything else to say.

“But, if you don’t listen to your old man on anything else, just listen to me on this: you do not want to get pregnant. Not now. Just take the bag, will you? Give me at least a little peace of mind.”

She nodded and rested the bag awkwardly on her lap. “Okay.”

“Okay.” He stood up abruptly. “I’m going to go and… do something else.” 

With that, he ran out of the room in the direction of his study as quickly as if his ass was on fire. Kat ran upstairs with the bag and threw it into her bedroom closet, glad to have the most awkward conversation she’d ever had in her life over with and the bag out of sight. 

She sat on her bed and mulled over what her father had thought had happened between her and Patrick yesterday afternoon. Inevitably, this led to her imagining her time with Patrick very differently from the way it had actually gone. Her very limited experience with sex taught her that it complicated and ruined things. But Patrick was a better man than Joey. She saw herself on top of him, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his fly while he waited with bated breath and a look of anticipation on his face. She imagined him moving inside her and wondered what it would feel like. She was willing to believe it would be different from Joey’s handful of quick, pistoning thrusts she’d endured as he’d feverishly chased his own pleasure while ignoring hers. When she went to sleep that night, she touched herself as she let her mind wander through the possibilities like walking through doors to several futures not yet explored.


End file.
